Dodecanese Campaign (1943)
Greece in World War II
| date | September 8 to October 22, 1943 |
|---|---|
| place | Dodecanese |
| output | German victory |
| Territorial changes | Dodecanese fell to the German Empire |
| consequences | German occupation of the Dodecanese group until surrender |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
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The British Dodecanese campaign from September 8, 1943 to October 22, 1943 was an operation during World War II and aimed at a conquest of the Italian Aegean Islands .
target
The aim of this landing operation was to occupy the Dodecanese islands in the south-eastern Aegean as soon as possible after the capitulation of Italy in order to use them as a base for operations against the Balkan countries controlled by Germany, in particular for air strikes on the Romanian oil fields of Ploiesti .
course
Due to the Allied preparations, most of the Italian soldiers either wanted to return to their homeland or to change sides, which is why German forces of Army Group E were transferred from the mainland to the Dodecanese Islands. The 7,500-strong Sturm-Division Rhodes under the command of Lieutenant General Ulrich Kleemann had the greatest importance .
On September 8, the Italian garrison on Kastelorizo surrendered to British troops. This caused the division commander Kleemann to give the order to attack the 40,000-strong Italian contingent on September 9th, which capitulated on September 11th.
In response to the Allied conquest of the islands of Kos , Kalymnos , Samos , Leros , Symi and Astypalia the German mobilized armed forces , the 22nd Infantry Division under the command of Lieutenant General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller , which on September 19 already Karpathos, Kasos and Italian-occupied islands of the Sporades and Cyclades controlled.
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In October, the German air force discovered the bases of the British armed forces on Kos and tried to fight them first with air strikes, then with an amphibious landing operation. This operation was nicknamed the Eisbär company and forced the British troops to withdraw overnight. During this battle 1388 British and 3145 remaining Italian prisoners could be taken. About 100 Italian officers were murdered by the Wehrmacht in the Kos massacre .
As a result of the surrender of the Italian forces on Kos, the Italian garrison Kalymnos surrendered, which meant a significant relief for operations against the next target Leros under the code name Enterprise Leopard . October 9th was set as the start of the attack, but it was delayed until November 12th due to the sinking of the German troop convoy (steamer Olympos with 5 ferry boats ) by the Royal Navy.
Divided into two invasion groups by landings, one from the east and one from the west, a bridgehead could quickly be built up by the coastal hunter division of the Brandenburg division . The following night, German paratroopers landed in the center of the island and the Allied forces were quickly cut in two. The Allied troops surrendered on November 16. The losses during this operation amounted to 520 men on the German side and 3,200 British and 5350 Italian prisoners.
consequences
The Allied attacks failed on all three islands attacked, Rhodes , Leros and Kos . With high losses of people and material, the British had to withdraw from the islands of the Dodecanese group. The islands were then occupied by German troops from the 22nd Infantry Division under the command of Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller from Crete and held until the German total surrender on May 8, 1945.
literature
- Andrew Browne Cunnigham, Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope: A Sailor's Odyssey. The Autobiography of Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope. Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., London 1951.
- Hans Peter Eisenbach: Front operations of a Stuka pilot - Mediterranean and Eastern Front 1943-44. Helios Verlag, Aachen. (The book describes the Stuka operations in the context of the Dodecanese campaign in detail.)
- Isabella Insolvibile: Kos 1943–1948. La strage, la storia . Ed., Istituto nazionale per la storia del movimento di liberazione in Italia. Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli 2010, ISBN 978-8-849-52082-8 . (The title in German: Kos 1943–1948. The massacre and history .)
Web links
- Course of the campaign
- Jürgen Rohwer : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Library for Contemporary History - Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, 2007, accessed on October 27, 2010 (course of the campaign).
Individual evidence
- ^ Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945 , Württembergische Landesbibliothek . Retrieved October 12, 2010.
- ^ Cunningham p. 582.